The Last Pirates Executed in Victoria Gaol

It may come as a surprise, but throughout its history, colonial Hong Kong was plagued by maritime piracy. In fact, the last case of piracy that affected Hong Kong occurred in November 1998—a little over a year after the handover of Hong Kong—when a group of thirteen pirates hijacked the Hong Kong-owned cargo ship Cheung Son, bludgeoning its entire crew to death. All thirteen pirates were executed by firing squad in Shanwei, China.

The last pirates who were executed on the territory of Hong Kong proper, however, met their fate between the mid-1920s and mid-1930s, after pirate syndicates began operating like corporate criminal enterprises. This era in Hong Kong criminal history is known as the "Aggravated Piracy" Wave. Whereas piracy was defined as the act of robbery or violence on the high seas, aggravated piracy involved additional severe circumstances such as physical assault, kidnapping, or murder.

As a result, between 1926 and 1935, British colonial judges sentenced seventeen men to death for aggravated piracy, though only eleven men were sent to the gallows of Victoria Prison, better known today as Tai Kwun. These men were the last pirates to be executed in Victoria Prison before the colony moved its execution facilities to Stanley Prison, on the southern edge of Hong Kong Island, in 1937.